


Let My Love

by gallifreyburning



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:28:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, Ten as an escort and Rose as his client.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Doctor realizes it’s a mistake the minute the cab leaves him on the sidewalk in front of the Powell Estate. By taking this job to help the Master because he’d double-booked himself, the Doctor has landed right back in the sort of place he’s spent the last few years working his way out of. He’s all too familiar with the desperate, middle-aged women who populate council estates and call for the services of someone like him, and they aren’t the kind of women he wants to waste his time with anymore. He’d rather be in the company of middle-aged women who reek of desperation  _and_  money, the kind who prefer the word  _escort_ when they find out what he does, because it sounds so much more civilized.

But he’s a professional, so he’ll do the job.

It’s worse than he imagines.  The woman he’s here to see isn’t alone; this is some sort of birthday celebration. Ten o’clock in the evening, a ratty sixth-floor flat full of drunk older women in velour tracksuits with their faces caked in makeup. When the birthday girl herself opens the door, sweating gin and shrill with excitement, and he catches sight of the den of biddies behind her, he nearly bolts. She snags his tie with chubby fingers, blood-red fingernails digging into the expensive silk, and yanks him inside.

There is no end to the creative ways the Doctor is going to make the Master repay him for this favor.

The only small mercy is that the answering service got the message wrong when they contacted him, and the birthday girl seems to be under the impression that he’s a stripper. Stripping isn’t the Doctor’s forte, in terms of the skill set that comes with his profession – chatting someone up and using his gob as a seduction tool, sweeping them off their feet and out of their mundane lives, his extensive knowledge of how to please women physically, those are his strong suits. But he’ll manage this, tonight.

The Doctor peels off his pinstriped suit piece by piece (for all these cackling women care about his fine tailoring, he could be wearing a rainbow-colored clown costume or a cricket outfit); he encourages their catcalls and shrieks when opens his oxford one button at a time and exposes his lithe chest; he struts and gyrates around the flat in his pants and grits his teeth behind his smile, until they’ve groped their fill.

He’s got a thin stack of pound notes in his pocket, his tie draped around his neck and jacket over one arm, when he finally makes it out of the flat and back onto the open walkway outside. The door closes behind him and cool night air sweeps across his face, lifting away some of the sweat and perfume still clinging to his flesh. Filling his lungs, he pauses, staring up at the light-polluted sky of London. As he studies the few faint stars that are visible, his hands work automatically, refastening the buttons on his oxford so they’re not crooked, tucking his shirttails into his trousers.

“You alright, mate?”

The Doctor starts and instinctively reaches up to smooth his hair – he’s had half a dozen women tugging at it for the last two hours, and his roots are aching, and his tie is hanging loose and undone, and he’s sure he looks affright. He’s not used to being caught offguard, and it’s just one in a long series of unexpected and unpleasant things he’s been through tonight, and he’s flustered.

It’s not a sensation he’s used to, and certainly not one he enjoys.

There’s another woman just down the way, this one much younger, blond hair made pale in the harsh fluorescent lights, baggy hoodie and jeans hanging off of her curves, and she’s peering at him in concern.

“Yeah,” he replies to her question, wondering exactly how bedraggled he looks. She’s staring at him like she expects him to keel over any second.

“Too much to drink?”

His mouth twists into a half-grimace. He could do with a drink or ten right now. “Something like that.”

“Can I call someone to pick you up, or maybe a taxi?”

“Thanks, but I’ll manage.”

She gives him a smile, lifts the corners of her mouth and her eyes are so bright and concerned that his grimace shifts into a grin that mirrors hers, without him realizing it. He ought to break off his gaze, he’s practically ogling her. She’s pretty, but not the sort of woman he wants to end the evening with, not the sort of woman who could thicken the stack of bills in his pocket by a significant amount.

He’s still staring when she walks past him, her cheeks pink, and opens the door to the flat he’s just left.

_Oh._

The Doctor isn’t running, really. Just a bit of hustle, more like a jog, right to the stairwell and away from the shrieking that pours out when the young woman walks into the flat to join the others.

He makes it downstairs, but his escape is thwarted: the streets surrounding the estate are practically deserted, certainly no taxis cruising for a fare in this part of London.

“Bloody perfect!  _Fuck_!”

His mobile. It’s not in his pocket, it must’ve fallen out in the flat when he tossed his trousers across the room and they landed on the birthday girl’s head. What was her name? Jacey, Jane, Jackie?

He’s pacing back and forth in front of the stairwell, working up the nerve to go back up to the sixth floor, coming up with ever-more inventive ways to make the Master pay for guilting him into taking this job, when a flurry of pink and yellow flashes down the stairs.

The same young woman from outside the flat, hands shoved into her pockets, bounces to a stop in front of him.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” she says. “I was looking for you.”

His heart thumps at that, a few beats too hard, and he can’t decide if it’s because he’s excited or worried. Maybe both.

“Yeah?”

“Sure I can’t call you a taxi?” She’s grinning, clearly amused, her gaze flitting to the open buttons at his neck, the tie still draped across his collar. Drawing her right hand out of her pocket in an exaggerated motion, she proffers him a dark blue mobile.

An undignified squeak of pure joy comes out of his mouth and he snags the phone from her palm, beaming at it. He clears his throat, lowers his register to something more manly, even while he practically hugs the device to his chest. “I was just looking for that.”

“I didn’t realize earlier, up there, that you’d just – that you were – you’re a –” She clears her throat. “Anyway, I figured you wouldn’t want to go back into the lion’s den.” She draws her left hand out of her other pocket and extends a wadded black sock, with pink seams, toward him – he unconsciously wiggles his right toes, the bare canvas of his plimsoll scratching his skin. He pockets the sock, and her smile fades and she kicks her heel against the sidewalk and shifts back a half-step, obviously embarrassed. “My mum said she was going all-out for her fortieth, I should’ve known to hide the extra bottles of gin. She wasn’t too bad, was she?”

His laugh seems to startle her. “Comes with the territory,” he says. “And your mum was far from the worst, believe me. I have been places and seen things you wouldn’t believe.”

Her eyes dart up to his, brimming with unbridled curiosity. “Really?”

“The fall of Troy. World War V. I even pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party.”

She squints, frowning a little. “Are those metaphors? Or are you mocking me?”

“Neither. This line of work’s all about fantasy, bringing a touch of the extraordinary into ordinary people’s lives, to break up the monotony of work and food and sleep they fill their days with.”

“So you dress up like Helen of Troy, or a Yankee colonist, and strip?” He’s certain she isn’t trying to be insulting, she’s genuinely interested – in a blunt, sudden sort of way.

“Now there’s a thought. I’ve never tried dressing like Helen of Troy,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ve never done well with wigs, though – there’s that in the con column. They itch something fierce. Also, I’m not a stripper. I’m an escort.”

Her mouth hangs open, lips forming an O shape for a split second. “Oh my god, did my mum –”

“No. She seemed to be under the impression that I was a stripper. I didn’t disabuse her of the notion.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not judging you,” she waves her hands helplessly, button nose wrinkling. “There are just some things a daughter wouldn’t want to know about her mum, y’know?”

In point of fact, the Doctor doesn’t know. “Yeah.”

There’s a stretch of silence that goes on a few beats too long, eye contact without conversation and the Doctor’s dawning realization that he’d like to ask her a few questions in return for the ones he’s answered.

The mobile buzzes in his hand, and he instinctively looks down at the screen. It’s from his TARDIS message service, a text with a name and an address in a posh area of London. A gig, if he wants it.

“Well, good luck finding your taxi. G’night,” the woman says, apparently taking his shift in attention as a dismissal, or maybe she’s just decided to drop the pretense of curiosity and move on with her night.

“Thanks again for the phone,” he says, and it does sound like goodbye, which isn’t what he wants to say at all.

She gives him one last smile, full lips and white teeth and a hint of tongue peeking out. To his surprise, she doesn’t go back up the stairwell; instead she turns around and heads down the sidewalk to a bus stop at the end of the block.

It’s a few moments before the Doctor realizes he’s still staring at her, a job and money waiting in his hand, only a taxi ride away. The bus is trundling down the street in the distance, headlights bobbing as it approaches.

He crams the mobile into his pocket and reaches up to button his shirt and knot his tie, then breaks into a sprint to make it to the bus stop before the bus pulls away, long legs churning on the sidewalk.

The blond’s eyes widen at the sight of him barreling up the steps. She watches him settle into a seat across the aisle on the mostly empty bus. “I’m the Doctor, by the way,” he says, sliding on his jacket and tugging the collar to straighten it before he offers her his hand.

She reaches out to shake it. “I’m Rose. Rose Tyler. No luck with the taxi?”

“Nah.” He pauses, glances out the windshield of the bus at the dark street in front of them. “Where’s this thing heading, anyway?”

“I just got off a long shift at the shop, and I’m starving, and there’s no way I’m staying at my mum’s right now. So this bus is headed to Phil’s Chippy, or all the way Croydon, depending on how far you want to go.”

Chips. Chips and Rose Tyler.

That’s his stop.

They stay at the chippy until it closes. He mocks her for drowning her chips in vinegar, and she laughs at the pretentiousness of his name. He doesn’t use a single one of his patented seduction methods with Rose, because it would be like profaning something sacred. He doesn’t need them, because the conversation between them is natural and comfortable, as though this is the continuation of something they’d just left off a few minutes ago, a childhood friendship re-established.

Afterward they share a taxi. Just before she gets out at the estate, the Doctor puts his mobile number into her phone – not the message service, but his direct line. He hands it back to her with a smile, and he doesn’t care how goofy or hopeful he looks. “In case of emergencies.”

Rose laughs and flicks a button to dim the screen, tucking the mobile into her hoodie sleeve. “I don’t ever have those, Doctor. But thanks for keeping me company tonight.”

And with that, she’s gone.

Rose doesn’t call. It occurs to the Doctor that he knows her mum’s number, he could call the flat, but the idea is fraught with the danger of encountering Jackie again, and he’s nearly as keen to avoid that as he is to see Rose again.

Two weeks, and in the middle of a state dinner party the Doctor’s being paid to attend with a wealthy Russian oil heiress – she keeps pushing her toes into his crotch under the tablecloth, and it’s all he can do to keep a straight face and carry on a conversation with the MP next to him without yelping – his mobile buzzes in his pocket. He assumes it’s a message from the TARDIS and doesn’t check until he’s in the Russian heiress’s hotel room later that night, and she’s sprawled across the sheets, naked and sated and snoring delicately.

Standing in the dark at the end of the bed, he fishes into his trouser pocket and pulls out the mobile. The Doctor doesn’t recognize the number, but he instantly knows who the message is from.

_I was wrong about not having emergencies. I need you for a night. What’s your hourly rate?_

He stares at the bright little screen, the rest of the room faded into nothingness, the snoring heiress blending into the sound of the air conditioner like so much background noise.

 _Pricing depends on the services you’re interested in_ , he types. Presses send. Waits.

Forty-five minutes later, he’s sitting in his pants on the closed lid of the toilet in the loo, trying not to stare at his phone, carefully working his hair into a perfect coif to keep himself busy. Because he isn’t desperate to hear back from this woman, and the way his chest feels right now is because he drank too much champagne from room service, and he certainly isn’t silently mouthing the word  _Rose Ty-lah_ to himself, like he’s trying out the taste of it over and over again.

His phone buzzes again. _My ex Jimmy’s wedding. Just a date, suit preferred, Helen of Troy wig not required. How much for that sort of hourly service?_

The calculation happens almost instantaneously – what would she believe and be able to afford, but wouldn’t give away how eager he is to see her again?

He texts a number, and she texts him a date and address, and the Doctor has been officially engaged as Rose Tyler’s escort.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor’s line of work requires a delicate balance between private and public life. His work happens inside the private lives of other people, but however personal they might perceive his interactions with them, it can never be personal for him. Work is work, and his own emotions don’t get wrapped up in wining and dining, or sex, or whatever other services he’s paid to do.

It’s performance, pure and simple.

The small quiet hours of his own life, where he isn’t performing, those are for him alone. He’s rarely wanted to share them with anyone. There have been a few over the years who have glimpsed beyond his professional barricades – the Master, once upon a time; Sarah Jane; Romana. After they left, he bricked up the opening behind them, secured the perimeter again, made sure everything was locked up tight.

The hours before he’s scheduled to meet Rose Tyler at St. Paul’s in Knightsbridge, the Doctor puts on his professional armor. Shower, shave, cologne. Careful selection of tux and bowtie, socks that match his pants, leaving plenty of time to address his hair. This is a process in and of itself, three different types of product, just the right amount of blow-drying so it doesn’t look overstyled, working it with his hands until it’s at a precise loft and fullness.

The ride to the church, he spends in an equally important form of maintenance: checking the perimeter of his internal barricades, closing off the nooks and crannies where the performance he’s about to put on might leak into something personal for him.

So he’d shared chips with this woman after a rough night. He didn’t find her company unpleasant, which should make the evening go smoothly. But she’s a client, and he’s on the clock, and everything from here on out will be strictly professional.

Rose is waiting for him a block from the church. The taxi pulls up to the curb and he spots her, leaning against the side of a building, half-hidden in an alley, cigarette in her fingers. She looks vastly different than the woman he met on the estate nearly a month ago, sporting an off-the-shoulder black velvet frock instead, long skirt and high stilettoes to match. Her hair is pulled up, exposing the slope of her neck, pale and delicate. Her makeup is careful and understated, if a little heavy on the mascara. Purse clutched under one arm, she takes a long pull on a short cigarette, staring at the ground as though the secrets of the universe are written in the circular cracks on the tarmac.

It’s striking, the difference between the hoodie and jeans of their first meeting, and this formal frock that would do for a night out at the theater.

“Blimey, you look beautiful,” he says as he closes the cab door, and it isn’t a lie. But if he was being entirely honest, he’d admit he preferred her in something more casual. Something more …  _Rose_.

She jumps, whirling around to face him, yanking the stub of a cigarette out of her mouth. “The dress still has the tag in,” she blurts out, as though he’s accused her of something. “I’m going to return it to Henriks after tonight.” She’s fiddling with the fag and her purse, nearly dropping both. Finally unhooking the purse clasp, she gropes inside. “Thanks. For coming. I’ve got the money, I put it in an envelope, it’s just right here.”

Blowing out a huff of air, she yanks a wrinkled white envelope out and shoves it toward him. It trembles a little.

They’ve got at least six hours ahead of them this evening, and it won’t do to have Rose on edge like this. He steps closer and she tenses even more, staring up at him.

“This bit usually happens at the end of the night,” the Doctor says. She’s the kind of girl who wouldn’t include a tip in that envelope, because it wouldn’t occur to her, this sort of companionship being a service.

He doesn’t care.

“Please, just – take it?”

The Doctor does as he’s told, tucks it into the breast pocket of his tux jacket. Fixing his mouth in a warm smile, he reaches toward her hands, slowly enough so it’s obvious that he’s asking permission. Her hazel eyes are wide, and they leave his face long enough for her to drop the cigarette and smash it with the toe of her stiletto. Then she looks at him again, lifting her hands to meet his.

He clasps her fingers, squeezing gently. “Breathe.”

She obeys, drawing in a slow breath through her lips, letting it out again.

“This evening’s going to be brilliant. I brought the Helen of Troy wig, in case you’ve changed your mind. It’s in the boot of the cab.” He wiggles his eyebrows in a way that he’s been told, on several occasions, looks particularly ridiculous.

A high-pitched laugh bursts out of her. “I don’t even know why Jimmy invited me, except to rub all this in my face,” she says, gaze darting to the posh neighborhood surrounding them. Her fingers twitch, curl around his. “It’s been almost a year since I broke things off. It was bad between us for a long time before I finally left, though. And he kept coming around afterward, pounding and yelling at my mum’s door when he was drunk. Mickey chased him off of the estate one time, and he came around less after that. Mickey is –  _was_  – my boyfriend after Jimmy. That ended a month ago, and Mickey couldn’t be my plus one to the wedding after that, could he?” Rose looks at the Doctor as though she’s expecting an answer, but before he can form one, she barrels on: “I couldn’t  _not_  come. I mean, I have to show Jimmy that I’ve moved on. He has to think my life is blooming  _fantastic_. I’m the bigger person, and all that. I don’t care that he’s marrying some millionaire’s daughter, do I?”

“I’ve known quite a few millionaire’s daughters in my day,” the Doctor replies with a shrug. “They’re overrated, on the whole.”

“Right! My point exactly! Jimmy’s her problem now, with his moldy yoghurt in the fridge and his toenail clippings on the floor and the terrible things he says when he’s drunk.” Rose pauses. “Although nobody deserves any of that. Poor Victoria.”

“You feel sorry for her.” The realization surprises the Doctor.

“I’m not jealous, if that’s what you mean. I don’t want Jimmy, not anymore. I just – my life is a boring job in a shop, and nothing happens to me. Not ever.” A small frown crosses her face and she stares at the ground between them, hands still resting in his. “I don’t even know why I’m saying all of this.”

“You’re nervous. It’s only natural,” he reassures her, but the worry line stays fixed between her eyebrows. “Who am I tonight, then, Rose Tyler? Your mate? Cousin? Boyfriend? Fiancé?”

“Oh.” Rose tilts her head upward again, her cheeks pink in the cool air. “I hadn’t thought that far. I just didn’t want to come alone. Or worse, bring my mum.”

“That  _would_  be bleak,” the Doctor laughs. “I can confidently say that your mum would cut a far less impressive figure in a tux than I do.”

Rose’s eyes travel down his body for the first time, appraising. His back straightens and his chest puffs out as she raises her gaze to his face and lets his hands go. “Do we have to put a label on things tonight? Mate, whatever? Can’t you just be the Doctor?  _My_  Doctor?”

No one has ever answered the question like that. The Doctor’s mouth works silently, and he hears a drawn-out  _Well-l-l_ coming from himself.

“Oh no, that sounds mental, doesn’t it?  _I_  sound mental,” she groans. Her cheeks are turning pink. “I sound like I’m carting around my psychiatrist for the evening. Maybe I  _should_  be.”

“It doesn’t sound mental at all. It sounds perfect.” The Doctor turns in the general direction of the church and offers her his arm. “Shall we, Miss Tyler?”

Slipping her arm through his elbow, she takes a deep breath and replies, “Might as well, Doctor.”

They arrive just a few minutes before the ceremony’s set to begin, and are ushered to a pew on the groom’s side of the church. Rose crosses her knees in the narrow space in front of them and perches her handbag in her lap, compulsively snapping the clasp open and closed as she scans the crowd.

The Doctor tips his head toward hers. “This is the fifth wedding I’ve been to in this church,” he says. “This is the place where the nouveau riche like to strut, put on a five hundred thousand pound wedding to show how well they’re doing. Just look at these overdone flower arrangements on the altar. They scream too much money and too little taste.”

“This is your fifth” – she glances around, lowers her voice to hardly a whisper – “paid job here?”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t like admitting that to her, for some reason. He’s not self-conscious about his line of work, he likes what he does. He’s good at it. Why does it matter if Rose knows that he’s escorted other women to weddings? “This place is usually booked out a few years in advance.”

Rose has stopped nervously fiddling with her purse. She surveys the ornate chancel in front of them, the elaborate architecture in the transepts to each side, marble carved to look like lace in every nook and cranny. “Makes for nice wedding pictures, I suppose. But Jimmy and Victoria have only been engaged for four months.”

“Somebody in the wedding party shoveled out quite a bit of money, to book this place on a Sunday afternoon on such short notice.”

“Who else did you … accompany here?”

It was a mistake, this topic. He definitely does not want to talk to Rose about the other women he’s been out with. It’s unprofessional, for starters. That should be enough reason for him to clam up on the subject. But he also doesn’t want Rose thinking about him in the context of other jobs, other adventures with other people.

Her eyes glimmer with unbridled curiosity as she studies his profile, the same expression she’d worn the night they had chips and talked until the small hours.

It’s intoxicating, that expression on Rose Tyler’s face in particular. He wants to keep it there.

“Lady Christina de Souza,” he whispers, hardly louder than his breath. This is beyond taboo, breaking client confidentiality. Rose’s mum would probably be the kind to run off to the  _Sun_  and blab all the sordid details, but the Doctor trusts Rose not to do that sort of thing. Plus, the way she’s staring at him right now, like he’s the most interesting creature in the universe – he doesn’t want that to stop. She leans in closer, eyes wide and locked onto his mouth, like she’s lip reading. “She stole the chalice from the church and brought it to the reception, drank champagne from it the rest of the evening. We ended up in a double-decker bus, halfway across London. I lifted the chalice from her and put it back before it could be missed.”

Rose’s grin could light up the city. “No!”

“Astrid Peth.”

“The cruise line heiress?”

“Sheltered lady. Kind and thoughtful. Nice meal, a little sightseeing afterward. The wedding was a complete wreck, the bride and groom practically decided to get a divorce before the reception was over. The whole event went down in flames around us, but she was delightful.”

“Who else?”

He’s saved from his own preening vanity when the organ starts up, blaring  _Ode to Joy_  through the stone church. A small flurry of movement occurs at the front as the priest, groom and best man step up to the altar from a side door.

Rose’s cheeks turn deep pink as she stares at the bloke in the tux at the altar. He’s a bit pretty, the Doctor decides, but with an indefinably unpleasant aspect to his good looks. He’s the kind of bloke a girl has to be careful of at a bar, one she ought to think twice before accepting a drink from.

Rose’s hand finds the Doctor’s, fingers lacing with his, and she squeezes, a silent plea for reassurance. He squeezes back. A few moments later when they stand and turn to the side to watch the aisle for the bride’s entrance, he puts their joined hands against her thigh. It isn’t exactly an embrace, but it is certainly an offer of support. She leans back into him a little, enough so that he feels her quick breathing and smells the scent of her shampoo. Her hair is soft where it brushes his jaw, her perfume understated and elegant, even if it's inexpensive. 

Victoria steps into the room, resplendent, and the congregation collectively inhales. Rose is so tense, right up against him, practically hyperventilating.

“After tonight the world will keep turning,” the Doctor murmurs against the shell of Rose’s ear, Beethoven masking his words from anyone else but her. “When this wedding is over, the ground beneath our feet will still be spinning at a thousand miles an hour, the entire planet hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. Can you feel it, moving right now? We’re falling through space, you and me, together. Right here on this ball of rock, right now. This moment is no different than any other, no more important than the moment you picked your knickers this morning or the moment you’ll brush your teeth before you go to bed.”

Rose is quiet for a second, her breathing slowing down as she thinks about his words and watches another woman glide up the aisle toward her ex-boyfriend. The wedding gown’s train is nearly as long as the aisle itself, like the white wake churned out behind a sleek silk-covered boat.  Jimmy doesn’t have eyes for anyone else in the room.

Just as the organ tapers off, Rose turns her head. The Doctor’s lips brush against the upper curve of her cheek on accident, and she murmurs in reply, “Who says I put on knickers this morning, Doctor?”

The last strain of organ music dies, and the entire congregation sits in flurry of creaking pews. The Doctor stays standing, unable to remember how his knees work for a full two seconds, not until Rose tugs on the hand she’s still holding and he thumps down next to her.

All those internal barricades he shored up on the way to meet Rose tonight, all the nooks and crannies he closed off to keep his personal feelings out of what’s happening on this job? Light is flooding through the cracks, blinding and burning him right down to his center.

It’s the best, most painful thing he’s felt in a long time.


	3. Chapter 3

The wedding is routine enough. Rose has been to several, even if they weren’t in such posh digs. Vows, scripture, homily, hymns, recessional, and if she didn’t have a death-grip on the Doctor’s hand she’d have been nervously click-clicking the clasp on her purse the entire service.

After she broke up with Mickey, as Jimmy’s wedding drew closer, Rose panicked. She contemplated taking Mickey back just for a week, until this day was over. She couldn’t do it, of course; it would’ve been cruel. She considered not going at all, but she  _needed_  to. For herself, for the new person she'd become after she and Jimmy were over. Because she's different now. She's a better person, she's stronger and she's moved on. 

The idea of hiring someone to be her date never would have occurred to her, before her chance encounter with this mysterious man at the estate on her mum’s birthday. Hiring a prostitute – Rose definitely isn’t that kind of girl. But panic and desperation do strange things to a person.

 _I was wrong about not having emergencies_ , she’d texted to the Doctor, and she wasn’t exaggerating. The prospect of coming to Jimmy Stone’s wedding alone absolutely meant an emergency. Not only an emergency, but also a financial extravagance and a moral anomaly. Sitting here now, the Doctor’s fingers curled around the back of her hand and his shoulder pressed reassuringly against hers, she realizes exactly how much she needed someone to hold onto through this ordeal.

Jimmy looks good. Handsome and happy. Victoria is stunning – more beautiful than Rose, she thinks. More wealthy, more elegant, more  _everything_.

When the ceremony’s finished, the newly-minted Mr. and Mrs. Stone strutting down the aisle to a deafening organ blare, the Doctor’s voice registers in her ear. “You all right?”

“I’m always all right,” she replies automatically, half-turning toward him, her eyes still locked onto Jimmy. The Doctor’s leaning in close, to be heard over the music, and the tip of his nose bumps into hers. Startled, she jumps back; a hand presses against her hip, holding her steady, stopping her from getting too far away.

His gaze darts to something beyond Rose. “Sorry, so sorry,” he says to the elderly woman behind them, the one Rose had nearly barreled into.

As soon as it’s clear she has her balance back, the Doctor removes his hand. He shoves his fists into his pockets, smiling and surveying the church. The guests are all rising to their feet, making for the exits, and the reception at the luxury hotel down the street.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Rose says.

“Rubbish,” the Doctor replies, his nose wrinkling. “Clichéd music selection, uninspired vows. And seafoam green for the bridesmaids’ dresses is practically criminal. It’s a miracle Victoria still has friends, if she’s putting them in that color and forcing them to stand in front of a crowd for an hour.”

Rose laughs, tension still bobbing around inside her chest like a leaky, slowly-sinking boat.

The Doctor sticks out his elbow, hand still in his pocket. “I suppose there’s a reception next. Champagne and toasts and dancing?”

“Yeah.” Rose takes his arm, and they edge out of the pew to join the crowd in the aisle.

“We could stop off for some chips first.”

The idea is tempting. The way the Doctor’s arching an eyebrow at her, the promise of mischief in his expressive brown eyes, is even more tempting.

But she’s here to close the book, in terms of this Jimmy Stone chapter of her life. If she leaves now, there will be always be passages unfinished and participles dangling. There can be no ambiguity in Rose’s heart and mind, no misunderstandings left, once this evening is done.

“Tell you what, if the food at the reception’s as rubbish as the bridesmaids’ dresses, I’ll spring for chips afterward.”

The Doctor nods, his expression unchanging. “Deal.”

It’s probably her imagination, but she thinks there’s a hint of disappointment in the word.

The walk to the hotel is short, and even with her shoes pinching and a cold wind blowing up her dress ( _Knickerless, really Rose, what were you trying to prove to yourself? This isn’t sexy, it’s pneumonia-inducing_ ), their conversation is engaging enough to make it feel as though no time has passed at all. As if they hopped by magic from the moment in the church to this moment right here, on the threshold of the hotel ballroom.

Every inch is decked out in splendor, gilded and abloom, shimmering in silk and organza, lights twinkling. A band plays low-key music as guests mill around, drinking champagne from crystal flutes and finding their place cards on the tables.  It’s another world, someplace magical where fairy tales come true.

To complete the fairy-tale setting, a burly troll-like bloke is working security at the door, vetting everyone as they enter.

“There’s no ‘Tyler, plus one’ on the guest list, Miss,” he says, all firm courtesy. His mouth twists into a bent line he probably intends to be a sympathetic smile. 

“I have an invitation and everything,” Rose protests, trying to keep her voice from rising. The Doctor stands behind her, out of her line of vision – what if he thinks she wasn’t really invited? What if he thinks she’s crashed this whole event? Someone waiting further down the line clears their throat loudly. Mortification prickles across Rose’s neck and down to her shoulder blades.

“I need to see your invitation.”

“I didn’t bring it, did I,” Rose replies through gritted teeth, her forehead aching with the effort of keeping her expression pleasant. “It’s an invitation, not a bloody  _ticket_.”

“You can’t come in if you aren’t on the list,” the guest-list troll repeats with an indifferent shrug. His attention shifts to the couple behind her and the Doctor, and just like that, she’s been dismissed.

“Hold on—”

“Rose, it’s alright. Come on.” The Doctor tugs on her elbow.

“No, I won’t be—”

“Rose, it’s alright.” He tugs harder, and she lets herself be pulled away from the line of partygoers.

She is so frustrated, she wants to scream. What if Jimmy did this on purpose, to wind her up, to embarrass her in front of all of their mutual friends? It’s just like him, to be so petty, to get off on seeing others humiliated. But for Jimmy, it was always,  _especially_ Rose he got off putting in that position. 

Hot, furious tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she blinks hard, willing them to disappear.

 “You really want to go in there?” the Doctor asks. He’s drawn her down the hall, so they’re standing behind a potted ficus. “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

Even as she nods, lips pressed tight together, she isn’t sure at all.

“All right, then. C’mon. No use loitering about out here.” As he reaches for Rose’s hand, the Doctor casts a last glance at the line of guests filing into the main door of the reception. Then he’s off down the corridor like a shot, pulling Rose along like a particularly manic, tux-wearing tugboat.

She’s so startled, she forgets to feel angry for a few seconds. Her furious tears vanish without her even having to force them away.

The Doctor screeches to a halt at a door just around the nearest corner, peeking in through the round window at the top. It’s too tall for Rose to see inside, but she hears an erratic clanking coming from inside.

“Perfect,” he whispers, whirling around to flash a grin. Her nerves tingle, fingertips buzzing. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Rose replies with another nod, mirroring his grin back at him. She has no idea what she should be ready for, but it’s got to be better than standing around in the hallway and being judged and found wanting by the guest-list troll.

The Doctor pushes open the door and they step into a large, chaotic kitchen. Servers bustle to and fro, cooks shouting for ingredients and serving pieces; the Doctor and Rose are unnoticed. Before she finishes taking in the scene, the Doctor is fiddling with the low neckline of her dress.

He’s got a napkin, and he’s tucking it in as if she’s a child. Long fingers, careful and quick, poking the cloth against the top of her breasts. His fingertips are warm, his nails brushing across her skin. He isn’t looking at her face, and when she stops staring at the sight of his hands against her cleavage, she realizes his freckled cheeks are just the slightest bit pink.

He finishes with a few folds of white napkin against her black dress, reaches out as though he intends to stroke and pat down his handiwork – right across the full curve of her breasts – then thinks better of it and folds his arms across his own chest instead.

“Good enough,” he says.

“Good enough for what? Eating a lobster?”

“Good enough for getting through the gamut,” he replies with a head-tilt toward the hectic kitchen.

 _Ahh._  He made Rose a white collar, so her outfit resembles the waitresses’ black-and-white dress uniforms. His own tux blends in well enough without any further camouflage.

The Doctor whirls around to snatch a silver canapé-laden tray off of the nearest prep table. He plops it into her hands, then snatches a second silver tray full of champagne flutes for himself.

“Follow my lead,” he says, lifting the tray up to his shoulder, so it partially conceals his face.

If Rose’s hands weren’t already full, she’d salute him. Instead, she follows as he dodges and weaves through the controlled chaos, making his way toward the door that leads into the reception hall.

Her brain is moving as fast as her feet, thinking about how barmy this is, crashing a wedding reception she was invited to. Thinking about how if this madman wasn’t leading her along like the Pied Piper, if she had come alone, she’d probably have left the hotel in tears. She’d have spent the next week feeling miserable, deconstructing her humiliation over and over again, imagining Jimmy and Victoria on a fancy private-island honeymoon. Instead, Rose is flying on a surge of adrenaline, moving along in tandem with this bizarre bloke as though they’re some kind of team.

She has no idea how he is in bed, but she can see why anyone would pay exorbitant amounts of money even just for his company. Being around him, she’s feeling intoxicated.

 _Not that I’d make a habit out of paying someone to spend time with me_ , Rose thinks, dodging a waiter, her canapés bobbing precariously.  _Or paying for a shag. Or paying to shag the Doctor._ She’s fixated on his brown hair (it curls just the tiniest bit at the base of his neck because he needs a trim), and the movement of his shoulders beneath his dinner jacket as he pivots to avoid a wet towel flung from the dish pit.

Her gaze drops to his hips and arse; they look like they’d be good for dancing and so many other things, too.  _God, he’s probably brilliant in bed. Way better than Jimmy ever was – not that Jimmy set the bar high, mind. But Doctor’s skinny hips and long fingers … Does he charge extra for exotic positions? Or more than one orgasm? Would it cost more, to add toys to the experience, or is his fee a package deal? What about a shag in an unusual location?_

In a vivid flash, her imagination helpfully supplies an image of the Doctor lifting her onto the nearest prep table, stainless steel cold against her knickerless arse as he pushes her skirt up and out of the way. He’d bury his face between her breasts, lips and tongue warm against her skin the same way his hands were just moments ago, when he fashioned the napkin into a disguise. Her fingers would be in his hair, pulling and tugging ( _such great hair_ ) and she’d wrap her legs around those skinny hips and hook her stilletos into the waistband of his trousers, to push them down around his ankles.

Her thoughts are interrupted when someone behind them calls, “Oi! Oi you!”

They’re on the other side of the kitchen now, though, and the Doctor bumps open the door to the reception and walks out without a glance back, just like he belongs there. Rose doesn’t know if the shout was directed at them, and she doesn’t dare turn around. Instead, she jogs in her high heels the last few steps into the relative darkness of the party.

There’s a serving station just beside the door, where she deposits her canapé tray and yanks the napkin from her décolletage just in time for the Doctor to hand her a champagne flute.

Heart hammering and her blood singing with excitement, Rose grins at him like a maniac.

“Cheers,” she says, tipping her head back and draining the champagne in a few long gulps. It fizzes and burns down her throat, into her stomach, and she’s going to float away. Putting down the empty flute, Rose grabs a second, and then takes the Doctor’s hand. He stares at her with wide eyes, obviously surprised, and she pulls him deeper into the reception.

Tables full of china ring the room, surrounding an empty dance floor and the band. The crowd is milling around, waiting to be told what to do. Rose takes another long swig of champagne, cold bubbles in her chest a sharp contrast to the warmth spreading down her arms and legs from the first glass.

“Rose? Oh my god, it’s really you!”

She knows the voice, even before she sees Adam. He breaks off from a small crowd clumped together against the back wall of the reception hall, all of them friends Rose spent so much time with when she’d dated Jimmy, and hasn’t seen since.

“Blimey, I didn’t think I’d see you here! How are you?” Adam says, coming in for a hug. Rose squirms out of the embrace as quickly as possible. Adam was always a smug prick, overly proud of his A-levels and probably in university by now. She backs away, right into the Doctor’s side. His arm slides comfortably around her shoulder, and he molds against her, his body language radiating intimacy.

Rose leans into him in relief. The pack of old mates looming in front of them is far less menacing from this vantage point, standing beside the Doctor, his subtle cologne filling her head and his steady presence shoring up her courage.

Adam’s curiosity might as well be a neon-lit billboard across his big forehead.

“I wouldn’t miss a proper do like this,” she replies, gesturing at his tux with her champagne glass. “I can’t believe Jimmy talked you into wearing that penguin suit.”

“Yeah, I thought he might ask me to be a groomsman, but I ended up on usher duty. You know how it is – Jimmy can talk anyone into anything.”

Adam’s gaze keeps darting back to the Doctor. Rose swigs the last of the champagne and retorts, “You’re right. I do remember Jimmy talking you into pretending a hairdryer was a gun so you could hold up a corner shop, and you earned your first ASBO.”

“My  _only_  ASBO.” His smile shifts into a grimace, and he turns his attention to the Doctor. “Hey, I’m Adam.”

“The Doctor,” he replies, sticking out his free hand for a shake. “Pleasure.”

“Rose!” calls a woman from the group behind Adam. She darts around him, sizing up the Doctor as she clutches Rose’s forearm. “It’s wonderful to see you! Did you find your table yet?”

“Hi, Jabe. Haven’t found our seats yet, no.”

“I’m sure your place cards are near ours. C’mon, I’ll show you and your … boyfriend?” The arch of Jabe’s eyebrow is practically a question mark.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Rose replies. The Doctor rocks up onto his toes, grinning as though this is a fantastic version of Twenty Questions. His palm is warm on Rose’s bare shoulder, his hip snug against the curve of her waist.

“Husband?”

Rose’s laugh is high-pitched and verging on hysterical. “No.”

“Prostitute?” Jabe says with a wry look, clearly teasing.

“Oh god,” Rose giggles uncontrollably, turning her head into the Doctor’s shoulder. Her face burns with blood, she can feel her blush spreading down her chest. The Doctor’s arm tightens around her, his fingers curling against her upper arm. 

She needs more champagne.  _Right now_.

Unfazed, the Doctor extends his free hand to Jabe. “I’m the Doctor, Rose’s plus one.”

“Well, Doctor Plus One,” Jabe says, shooting Adam a look that speaks volumes, “let’s see if we can find your seat.”

Rose and the Doctor do not, in fact, have place cards. Which means Jimmy  _did_ intentionally leave her off the guest list. The Doctor nicks a few chairs and place settings from a nearby table, and they squeeze in with Jabe, Adam, and the rest of Rose’s old friends.

At first Rose is terrified they’ll guess who –  _what_  – the Doctor is. But from the moment they sit down, the Doctor’s gob is off and running, spinning out brilliant stories that involve Rose, making their short acquaintance into something impressively grand and significant.

She gazes at him in wonder as he tells about the first time they met. She saved his life, by returning his phone. He might as well have been a knight after a princess, the way he chased down her bus just to spend more time with her. Their conversation at the late-night chippy takes on a soft-hued romantic light, when he goes on about it.

He deflects specific questions about his career into long-winded and absorbing stories about the places he’s gone, and the things he’s seen and done ( _but not the_ people _he’s seen and done, definitely not that_ ).

His attention still on the group, the Doctor’s hand finds Rose’s under the tablecloth, in her lap. It isn’t performance, completely out of anyone’s line of vision, just a threading of fingers for the two of them. She squeezes, thumb stroking across his, and smiles at him. His words stop, like the breath suddenly left his lungs, and he blinks a few times before his gob starts up again.

It’s almost as if the reassuring touch Rose needed earlier this evening, in the church, when the Doctor held her hand and whispered those words in her ear to calm her down – it’s his turn now, he’s asking for the same sort of reassurance from her.

Which is a strange thing for her to think, isn’t it?

The Doctor obviously knows exactly how brilliant he is, and he’s probably insufferable about it, too. Surely he doesn’t want Rose’s reassurance on that count. 

Is he worried he isn’t earning his pay? Wondering if she approves of his performance for her friends? 

By the time Jimmy and Victoria finally make their grand entrance into the reception, a small crowd has gathered around the table to listen to the Doctor’s stories. 

Even if nothing else happens this evening, it was worth working all that overtime at the shop, and dipping into her paltry savings, to hire him. 


End file.
